Fordoblelse in K Ierkegaard's Writings By

“Two things at the same time”: fordoblelse in Kierkegaard’s writings by Carolyn J. Mackie Supervisor: Dr. Robert Sweetman Institute for Christian Studies 2014 Mackie, "Two things at the same time":fordoblelse in Kierkegaard's writings, 2 Introduction “The spiritual person is different from us human beings in that he is, if I may put it this way, so solidly built that he can bear a redoubling /Fordoblelseywithin himself. By comparison, we human beings are like a half-timbered structure compared with a foundation wall—so loosely and weakly built that we are unable to bear a redoubling. But the Christianity o f the New Testament relates specifically to a redoubling. ”1 Existence. Faith. Despair. Subjectivity. If asked to choose a set of words that represent the distinctive voice of 19th century Danish writer0 renS Kierkegaard, these are some that might spring to mind. But—redoubling? Scholars and armchair philosophers alike might be forgiven for scratching their heads at the suggestion. “Er... excuse me, what was that? Re-what?” Redoubling—in Danish, fordoblelse—may not be a buzzword in Kierkegaard scholarship, but Kierkegaard himself freighted the term with enormous significance. Published less than six months before his death, the passage quoted above demonstrates the importance redoubling had gained in Kierkegaard’s thought. Marking the distinctions between the Christianity of the New Testament and the Christianity that he saw exemplified in a spiritually pallid Danish Christendom had become, by this time, the focal point of his project. And, as evident from this passage,fordoblelse had become essential to Kierkegaard’s understanding of true Christianity. Admittedly, the term itself appears with relative infrequency in the corpus. A quick search forfordoblelse in the electronic version ofSoren Kierkegaards Skrifter pulls up a mere 1 TM, 183. Mackie, "Two things at the same time":fordoblelse in Kierkegaard's writings, 3 2 thirty-four entries in Kierkegaard’s writings, almost half of which are located in his journals. The earliest reference is that found inJohannes Climacus or De Omnibus Dubitandum a Est, short work begun in 1842 and perhaps completed in 1843.4 Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus5 continues to use the term occasionally in the works he authors, giving brief mentions in both Philosophical Fragments (1844)6 andConcluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (1846). However, it isn’t until Kierkegaard’sWorks o f Love (1847) and Anti-Climacus’s Practice in Christianity (1850) that the idea begins to bear more conceptual weight in the texts. References tofordoblelse in the journals appear in the later years of Kierkegaard’s life, dating from 1849 until 1854, the year before Kierkegaard’s death. Scholarly attention tofordoblelse is also remarkably slim, given the significance that Kierkegaard himself assigns to it. The term has sometimes been confused in translation with n reduplication[reduplikation], as Andrew J. Burgess notes, a carelessness that may have o contributed to the lack of attention to redoubling in English language scholarship. Another 2 www.sks.dk. This number excludes related terms, such asselvfordoblelsen and fo rd o b lin g (see note below). 3 Strictly speaking, this is notfordoblelse, but a variant:fordobling. The only other occurrence of this form also comes from the mouth of Johannes Climacus, in hisPhilosophical Fragments (1844). As both instances of fo rd o b lin g occur beforefordoblelse makes an appearance in the corpus, it is likely that Kierkegaard adjusted his terminology asfordoblelse took shape in his mind. 4 "Historical Introduction," JC, ix-x. 5 Kierkegaard created a number of pseudonymous authors—Johannes Climacus, Johannes de Silentio, Anti- Climacus, and others—who function as literary characters, as well as the authors of many of his books. Kierkegaard should not be understood as agreeing with everything that is said by each author. Rather, the use of multiple authors is an important aspect of his dialectical method. It was Kierkegaard's desire that, instead of ascribing the various authors' words to him, the voice of each pseudonymous author would be properly acknowledged, a task to which contemporary Kierkegaardian scholarship is properly attentive. Throughout this paper, I will be referring to these various pseudonyms as the authors of their respective works. 6 Fordobling, again. Andrew J. Burgess, "Kierkegaard's Concept of Redoubling and Luther'sSim ul Justus," in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Vol. 16: Works of Love, edited by Robert L. Perkins (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1999), 40. 8 Perhaps it is significant that one of the few pieces of scholarship devoted specifically to redoubling is written in Danish, Gregor Malantschuk's "Begrebet Fordoblelse hos S0ren Kierkegaard,"Kierkegaardiana in 2 (1957). However, Malantschuk, too, may fail to adequately delineate the distinctions between categories. Martin Andic seem s to find Malantschuk's slurring of reduplication and redoubling under Kierkegaard's concept of "double reflection" in this article and elsewhere somewhat unsatisfactory. Martin Andic, "Love's Redoubling and the Mackie, "Two things at the same time":fordoblelse in Kierkegaard's writings, 4 contributing factor could be that the concept emerges more strongly in Kierkegaard’s later works, with relatively few appearances in some of those earlier works which have traditionally garnered more scholarly attention, such Philosophicalas Fragments and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Indeed, fordoblelse is not used at all inFear and Trembling, arguably Kierkegaard’s most widely-read work, nor in his inaugural masterpieceEither/Or. Whatever the reasons, the result is that very few commentators have spent extended time with the term, and a thorough, adequate explication has yet to appear. As I began to encounter the term in Kierkegaard’s writings, I found myself intrigued by its tantalizingly brief appearances. I soon realized that teasing out a proper definition would be a challenging task. Familiarity with the English verb “to redouble”—indicating intensification and primarily used in phrases such as “he redoubled his efforts”—certainly provides little help in understanding Kierkegaard’s use of the term. We are given relatively few references to redoubling throughout the corpus, and the matter is further complicated by the confusing multiplicity of contexts in which Kierkegaard dropsfordoblelse. Johannes Climacus uses the term while expounding on the nature of the historical,9 in a discussion on the qualities of truth as abstractly defined,10 and as part of his description of the meeting of ideality and reality in consciousness.11 Anti-Climacus warns against the “self-redoubling” that is an expression of despair,12 yet also states quite plainly that “a self is a redoubling.”13 Kierkegaard himself speaks of one’s neighbour as a redoubling of the self,14 uses the term to describe the presence of the Eternal Like for Like," in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Vol. 16: Works of Love, edited by Robert L. Perkins (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1999), 22-25. 9 PF, 76 (fordobling). 10 CUP, 190. 11 JC, 171 (fordobling). 12 SUD, 68-9(selvfordoblelsen). 13 PIC, 159. 14 WOL, 21. Mackie, "Two things at the same time":fordoblelse in Kierkegaard's writings, 5 eternal in temporal human existence15 and tells us that “love is always redoubled in itself.”16 There may be a way to reconcile all these varied usesfordoblelse, of but precisely how to do so is not immediately apparent upon a casual reading. Further knotty problems arise when one considers how redoubling might relate to other terms that Kierkegaard uses, such as reduplication[reduplikation], repetition[gjentagelsen], and double-reflection[dobbelt-reflexion]. Is there a cross-over in meaning between these various expressions? Why does Kierkegaard use the terms he does when he does? To what extent (if any) is his use of these various terms determined by the given stages in the development of his thought in which they appear? In this paper, I will attempt to explicate Kierkegaard’s usefordoblelse of across the corpus in as thorough a manner as possible, given the inevitable limits set by time, space, and resources. Chapters 1 and 2 will draw from those texts in which the term seems to have the greatest gravitational pull,Works o f Love and Practice in Christianity, respectively. In Chapter 3, I will turn to an examination of a small but important class of referencesfordoblelse, to those which relate to the nature of selfhood, an important theme throughout Kierkegaard’s writings. In chapters 4 and 5, I will analyze both the shared qualities and the divergences between redoubling and the related Kierkegaardian categories of reduplication and repetition, respectively. In the course of this paper, I hope to demonstrate that, despite the paucity of references to the term and of scholarship surroundingfordoblelse it, holds a significant place in Kierkegaard’s thought. My aim is to be able to trace some of the primary connecting threads that bring together the various references tofordoblelse, which at first seem rather diffuse and disparate. In so doing, however, I will intentionally leave space for the concept to show itself in its many-sided 15 WOL, 280. 16 WOL, 282. Mackie, "Two things at the same time":fordoblelse in Kierkegaard's writings, 6 complexity, even if this requires that some of the threads remain too tangled to be satisfactorily untied. Kierkegaard’s authorship is frequently marked by puzzles,fordoblelse and is no exception. In wrestling with the term, I hope to give our beloved Dane the freedom to continue to seduce us toward the truth by the intricate dialectic of his thought and method. Mackie, "Two things at the same time":fordoblelse in Kierkegaard's writings, 7 Chapter 1: Redoubling in Wo rk s o f L o ve Throughout the corpus,fordoblelse’s appearances are limited to sporadic, even solitary references in a given work. Works o f Love contains the highest density of references within any of Kierkegaard’s writings, yet it achieves this status with the rather underwhelming number of five references.

Load more